My birth parents had a family picked out before I was born. They did an exceptionally well job. I ended up meeting both of my birth parents who ended up marrying and having six children of their own, one of whom they also adopted. I was raised an only child so having six full siblings who knew nothing about me until I was 17 is absolutely incredible.

In all honestly though, since we’ve been reconnected my birth mother (not father) has done some things, mostly revolving around social media that really fucking hurt. Things like referring to my younger brother as her oldest, saying she has six kids not seven, not including me in the Christmas card or letter they send out every year. In all honesty I don’t think this would have such a profound effect on me if she didn’t insist to my adopted mother when we met that I call her mom out of the sake of not confusing my siblings. I held up my end, I call her Mom even when sometimes it feels more natural to call her by her name especially around the kids. Now, it was my understanding that if she wanted me to call her mom everywhere, she would refer to me as her daughter everywhere and this hasn’t been the case. I’ve tried talking to her about it but sometimes she just assumes she can do no wrong, and my sweet birth father ends up apologizing for the hurtful things she’s done when she shows no remorse and makes absolute bullshit excuses.

These issues aside it was really cool meeting people I had similar mannerisms to, personality traits, sense of humor, and looked like me after being in an awesome family that I sometimes felt like an outsider in. I want to clarify that my adopted family everyone from cousins to aunts to grandparents have never made me feel like I’m not 100% a part of the family, but we’re very different in many ways.

I always knew I was adopted, I don’t ever remember being told, I think this helped a lot in me having a healthy attitude about a lot of it. I know some kids who weren’t told until much later in life and were very effected by this news.

I’m covering the normal questions I’ve always gotten from people, let me know if you have more. My adoption is somewhat unique considering my parents married and I have several full blooded siblings. This makes it somewhat harder to navigate because there’s loads of info on adoption, but not adoption when full blooded siblings and an intact family is involved. It took about 10 years but I think we’re starting to find a good balance.